Whiting Out Our Streets Along the Way...

Wednesday morning moment of zen: listening to Fountains of Wayne's "Valley Winter Song" ^* as the snow whips by, horizontally, outside my window. (Of course, not everyone can be a zen master.)

Edit: No, I don't enjoy brown slush, puddles, or slipping on an icy sidewalk and falling flat on my ass—all accoutrements of snowfall in the city. But despite what some people think, I do find it strangely cheery having to brush the snowflakes off my jacket before hanging it up on the rack. It makes me feel alive somehow.

It is true that, living in the city, you miss the solitude that settles in right after a fresh, heavy snowfall in the countryside (or even in the suburbs). The blanket of snow on the ground absorbs much of the sound, enveloping you in an otherworldly silence, and if the clouds come low it feels like you're between two thick, soft blankets. (Sure, it's cold, but nothing a warm jacket and a hat won't fix.)

Walking home in the evening, past the cones of light pouring down from the streetlamps, has a lonely, intimate ambiance reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting (though, to the best of my knowledge, Hopper never painted any scenes set in winter. Also, I may well be the only person who finds any warmth or endearment in this painting—the writeups I've read of Hopper's work invariably describe it as depressing, even menacing—but somehow I've always felt drawn to it.)

I miss that.

* Eeeevil WMA, low-bitrate MP3, and RealAudio streams, respectively. Unfortunately, the MP3 clip really doesn't do justice to the song. You can listen to the WMA clip using VLC if you want to avoid WMP.